Zelda Kahan Newman is a linguist whose specialty is Yiddish language and culture. She has translated the poems of Rivke Basman Ben-Hayim and written about the interface of Yiddish and Hebrew in language as well as in literature. Her most important paper was a demonstration that modern Yiddish intonation derives from the way the original settlers of Ashkenaz chanted the Jerusalem Talmud.

Kahan Newman lived in Beer Sheva, where she taught at the University of the Negev and was active in MASLAN, a Negev-based women‚Äôs organization that helps victims of violence. She is currently living in New York and teaching at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Kadya
Molodowsky and Rokhl Korn, two eminent Yiddish writers and poets of the
twentieth century, shared similar life events.[i] Their age difference
was four years — Molodowsky was born in 1894, while Korn was born in
1898. Both women had resourceful mothers and “enlightened” fathers who were
versed in Hebrew. Both women were initially taught at home and later received
formal schooling. Their first works were published only two years apart. Korn’s
first poem was published in 1918, while Molodowsky’s first work was published
in 1920. Both women were attracted in their youth to socialism, as well as
Zionism. Korn got married in 1920, while Molodowsky got married in 1921. Like
many European Jews, they were displaced during World War I and like many
Yiddish writers they gravitated towards Warsaw in the interim war years. For a
short time, they were involved with a Communist Yiddish newspaper,[ii] but eventually became
disillusioned with Communism.

The
rise of Nazism in Europe sent the two women in different directions. Molodowsky
immigrated to the US in 1935, while Korn remained in Belarus. When the Germans
invaded her town, Korn was in Lvov, visiting her daughter. Korn spent the war
years on the run, and in a D.P. camp when the war was over. The friends
reunited after the war, and their lively correspondence lives on. The
Molodowsky archive is housed at the YIVO archive in New York, while Korn’s
archive is located at the Jewish library in Montreal.

Their
correspondence evokes great curiosity as the following questions come to mind:
What was the earliest post-war correspondence like? Did Molodowsky write to
Korn while the latter was in a D.P. camp? If she did, what did they talk about?
Did they discuss the war years? Did Korn describe her life in the camp?

In
1948, when Korn settled in Montreal, the state of Israel declared its
independence. Molodowsky left for Israel that year, seemingly to settle for
good. She and her husband returned to the US at least once in the next four
years. In 1952, they left Israel permanently. Since no one knows for sure why
they did, one wonders if the Korn-Molodowsky correspondence might shed light on
this clouded issue.

For
the last twenty-two years of her life, Molodowsky lived in New York, while Korn
lived in Montreal. The heavy folders in the YIVO archive attest to the fact
that the two maintained a dynamic correspondence. Did the women-friends write
to each other about the poetry they were composing? Did they share details of
their emotional lives? Did they discuss the political upheavals that surrounded
them? — These are some of the questions this investigation is set out to
answer. But do the YIVO and Montreal archives hold the keys to these questions
and add to the understanding of the relationship between these two women?

The
YIVO Archive

The
Molodowsky-Korn correspondence found in the YIVO archive spans fifteen years.
The letters, written between 1954 and 1969, are found in folders 49-51 of the
Molodowsky YIVO archive.

Remarkably,
no letters were found that predate 1954. Therefore, if the two women
corresponded while Korn was in the D.P. camp in Stockholm, Molodowsky did not
preserve these letters. Furthermore, if the two women corresponded during the
four years that Molodowsky was in Israel (from 1948-1952), this archive does
not hold any letters from these years. Molodowsky was careful to make carbon
copies of the letters that she sent out. She obviously had posterity in mind.
It is possible that the two women did in fact correspond while Korn was in the
D.P. camp and did correspond while Molodowsky was in Israel. The only way to
examine this gap was to examine Korn’s collection at the Montreal archive.

As
for the letters that Molodowsky did preserve, the YIVO archive has another
unexplained gap of four years. There is no correspondence between the women
between the years 1955-1958. Essentially, the existing correspondence consists
of 160 letters.

One
could assume that these two extraordinary women writers would reveal to each
other parts of their inner lives, which were concealed from the outside world.
However, this assumption turned out to be only partially correct: while Korn
had no problem revealing her feelings, Molodowsky rarely made her feelings
known. When she did, these tended to be about superficial day-to-day worries.
While she hinted at deeper issues, she carefully steered away from being
explicit. In the correspondence between these two women writers, an outsider’s
view of the Jewish society in Canada (from Korn) and in the US (from
Molodowsky) is revealed as well as writer-talk on poetry in general.
Interestingly, they rarely discussed their writing in detail. Instead, they
simply informed one another when they have finished working on a book, or when
they have received an award. They discussed their worries and their illnesses
in detail, which in a sense, is evident of their true friendship.

Topics
Discussed

I.
Women Writers

Both
Korn and Molodowsky arrived in the New World as accomplished, known writers.
Neither had to fight for recognition; both had an established publishing
record. And yet, their letters reveal a reality, in which women writers were
held to a different standard by their (male) fellow writers. An excerpt from a
letter written by Korn, (April 7, 1957) addresses this topic: “Even Bashevis,
who sharpened his teeth, could find no place to bite. When it comes to
women-writers, he depends on special methods to criticize them, as though he
wanted to hold them responsible for his personal failures in other phases of
[his] life. We forgive the critics their cunning. It means nothing, says
nothing. And in general it is akin to the cheek-pinching grown ups do to
children.”

II.
Svive
– The Yiddish Literary Journal

A.
Inception of the Journal

The
letters dealing with the journal demonstrate Korn’s influence had on the
inception of Svive,
the literary journal that Molodowsky edited from 1960-1974. In a letter dated
October 28, 1958, Korn bemoans the fact that there seems to be no central drive
that will encourage and sustain Yiddish literary efforts: “Everything is
conspiring against us. We are not even allowed to sink. Over time we are being
eaten up by a parasite that stealthily invaded us while we were despairing, and
it disturbs the organism like a worm that lies under the bark of a tree.” In
Korn’s view, Yiddish writers, no longer subjected to external persecution, were
now suffering from a self-inflicted lassitude. This was the “worm under the
bark” of the Yiddish tree of life. She saw the need for change and urged
Molodowsky to take action. In the aforementioned letter she says: “And that is
why we need a periodical and a press[iii] that will be run by a
group of responsible and non-affiliated people to whom the [Yiddish] word is
dear...After all, someone has to do something. ‘ It’s burning, Jews, it’s
burning.’”[iv]

It
is impossible to measure the influence of Korn’s exhortations (and
encouragement) on Molodowsky. However, nearly a decade later, (July 21, 1969),
Molodowsky recalled that Korn’s encouragement was indeed a factor in her
decision to take upon herself the editorship of Svive: “Don’t forget that you
belong to the small group of co-founders. If not [for your encouragement], how
could I have taken upon myself to lift such a mountain?”

Whatever
the weight of Korn’s encouragement, in the end, Molodowsky did agree to take on
the editorship of Svive. Korn was thrilled. She was effusive in her praise, not
just for the literary quality of the journal, but also in her praise of
Molodowsky’s personal effort. In a letter dated January 1, 1960, she says about
Svive:
“It is healthy, the healthiest plan in our sick times. May it have good fortune
and blessing.”[v] In addition, she sends
the name and address of a subscriber from Montreal, and urges Molodowsky to “send
them the first issue right away.” Over the years, Korn was constantly on the
lookout for potential readers of and subscribers to Svive. She encountered them
while traveling on planes and trains, and sometimes even in conversation at
social events. Each time she carefully noted the addresses and forwarded them
to Molodowsky.

Two
months later, in a letter dated March 22, 1960, Korn showered Molodowsky with
praise: “I’m amazed at you, Kadya. In addition to your wonderful talent and
extraordinary wisdom, you have courage and energy.” And again, when Molodowsky
complained of the difficulties involved with getting the journal out, Korn
remarked (November 8, 1960): “Do you remember how I urged you to put out the
journal no matter what? I do not regret it, and probably you yourself don’t
regret it, despite the difficulties.”

Molodowsky
was surprised and delighted with the response to the new journal. Apparently,
its success exceeded her expectations. In September of that year she writes to
Korn: “We should be congratulated. Svive has elicited a very good response in our
sleepy, dejected literature-world. It’s simply a miracle. In the book business
of New York, it is considered a “best seller”…People are buying Svive. They come, but not in
the hundreds. No one stands in line, no one is banging down the door, but a few
tens of copies are already on their way.”

For
all its popular success, the Yiddish establishment did not immediately herald Svive, or so Molodowsky
maintained. It is impossible to know which “cultural organizations” Molodowsky
was referring to in the following passage. Nevertheless, it is clear that in
her estimation, the “establishment” was more interested in dwelling on the past
than in recognizing and encouraging contemporary creativity. She wrote to Korn:
“It is interesting to note that our culture-institutions did not even raise an
eyebrow over Svive.
As long as they discuss “treasures” [of the past]…”

Molodowsky
mentioned in a letter to Korn later that year that a social event even netted
twenty-two more subscribers. By now, she felt she had every reason to be
optimistic: “In general, it’s a good beginning,” she said. Molodowsky also
wanted an engaged reading public. She was hurt when one subscriber put a check
in an envelope and made no comment. About the incident Molodowsky said to Korn:
“Emmanuel Nayman sent a naked check - without a good morning.” Evidently, Masha
Roskies did so too, and Molodowsky relates: “I will write to her and demand a
letter.”

Two
years later, on January 5, 1962, Molodowsky told Korn that getting people to renew
their subscription to Svive was a tedious business. Using the format of the
tkhines,
the Yiddish prayers for women, Molodowsky fashioned a mock-prayer for the
welfare of the journal, playfully suggesting that Korn say the prayer using the
following words: “Oh, Lord of the Universe, look around at your world, at those
who pray in prose and also in poetry, at those who fly around among the stars
and those who flutter between flowers and grasses, and those who have gathered
around [the journal] Svive. Help them in your great kindness.”

Both
women were well aware of the mockery that traditional tkhines had suffered under the
withering satire of male critics. Molodowsky herself had used the tkhines format to fashion
serious poetry.[vi] Here she willingly
adopted the format but adapted its content to fashion a heartfelt wish for the
continuing success of Svive.

The
last dated letter from Korn to Molodowsky is from 1969; there were no letters
from 1970 in the archives. In folder 51, there are eleven letters from Korn
that follow this one, but none is dated. These occasionally note the day of the
week, e.g., “Wednesday” or “erev shabes”, but there is no specific date. In one
of these, at a time when Svive had been out for nearly a decade, Korn gives
Molodowsky her estimation of the journal: “It is a fine journal, the best on
the American continent, as Di Goldene Keyt is in Israel.” Considering the superior
quality of writing that found its way to Di Goldene Keyt, the Yiddish-language
journal edited by Avrohom Sutzkever, the Yiddish literary giant of the 20th
century, Korn’s compliment is impressive.

B.
The Power Invested in “Editorial Pants”

Melech
Ravitch said about Molodowsky that she was “one of the first and perhaps even
the very first [woman] in Yiddish literature to wear editorial pants…”[vii] This editorial power
that Molodowsky wielded, this time as editor of Svive, nearly wrecked her
friendship with Rokhl Korn.

Korn
and Molodowsky had been colleagues and mutual admirers of each other’s work
back in Europe. When Molodowsky published “Khesvendike Nekht” her first volume of
poetry, Korn reviewed it favorably.[viii] When, for a brief time,
Molodowsky was one of the editors of Fraynd, the Yiddish language
communist newspaper, Korn contributed to it.[ix]However, once Molodowsky assumed the
editorial post of Svive in New York, there was a definite shift in the balance of
power.

On
January 7, 1961, Molodowsky wrote to Korn that she especially liked Korn’s poem
“Tsfas”:
“Tsfas”,
she told Korn, “is an exceptionally fine poem.” Five weeks later, she explained
to Korn that since she (Molodowsky) and Oyerbach and Korn had all written poems
about Israel, she had “gathered them all under the khupe (canopy) of the old
song of the lovers of Zion: “There where the Cedar…” which was once sung by all
of Israel everywhere.” This way, she explained, “it takes on a particular
unity.”

In
grouping the poems together, Molodowsky changed a numeral that Korn had
designated for the poem. The letter Korn sent to Molodowsky accusing her of
this tampering is not in this collection. But Molodowsky’s reaction to the
letter can be found here. Because parts of Molodowsky’s response were written
and re-written, it is impossible to know for sure which response was sent off.
Here is a response, dated Feb. 25, 1961: “Every mistake in a poem is very
painful, but the main thing, Rokhl, is the lines, not the numerals…But “Tsfas”, I mean the actual
poem “Tsfas”
and not the city, remains “Tsfas.” Then, she lists six different
consolations/excuses for what happened: 1) It was not intentional; it was a
mistake. 2) The poem can be re-printed along with the intended numeral. 3) The
omission of the numeral had nothing to do with the grouping of the three poems
under one canopy. 4) On the contrary, a canopy likes the dowry [Yiddish: nadan] of numbers, even for
the most beautiful bride. 5) The issue was trivial, and not worthy of Korn’s
energy. 6) It was not at all a bad thing to be situated under the canopy of a
song of the Bilu’im.[x]

After
these reasoned attempts at reconciliation, Molodowsky let her feelings show: “I
was truly heartsick when I received your letter, one that showed such a fury [mit
aza “va-yirgozun]”.
Korn’s unhappiness was not easily assuaged. The issue lived on in her mind, and
she continued to rehash it. She felt the need to explain her reaction in a
letter dated March13 of that same year: “The line in Svive hurts me because I
truly know who Kadya is, what a deep commitment she has to the written word.
Not for no reason did I pair you with the first poem of my book “Bashertkayt” (Destiny), and
especially with the one poem which tries to plumb the essence of poetry. This
was not a trivial dedication, but the deepest, most open expression of my inner
relationship to you and the highest praise of poetic quality. I have the
highest regard for your opinion of a line, and it seldom happens that I don’t
agree with your position. That is exactly why I was so upset. But if I caused
you aggravation - forgive and forget. You will understand me more than others
because you yourself are a poet of the highest order.”

As
often happens with intense arguments between close friends, hidden feelings
rise to the surface. This outburst revealed Korn’s genuine admiration of and
attachment to Molodowsky. It was Korn’s high evaluation of Molodowsky (she
claims) that made her feel all the more betrayed by Molodowsky’s error.

Molodowsky
apparently forgave Korn, but she did not forget. On March 29, she reassured
Korn that she had no problem re-printing “Tsfas,” as Korn had
requested. She then urged Korn not to think of the journal as hers: “It is
ours,” she said. And then she continued: “It is hard for me to drag the “crown”
of editorship. If only others would help me with it.” To show that she had in
fact put the issue behind them, she told Korn in the same letter that she was
printing Korn’s article on Pasternak’s poems in the next issue of Svive and she urged Korn to
continue to contribute to Svive.

In
a way, the issue of mistakes and typos continued to haunt Korn. In a letter
dated October 30, 1961, she complained that a resh was printed instead of
a dalet,
so that the word deformirn [to deform] came out as reformirn [to reform]. She pointed
out that this led to nonsense. Two months later, when she discusses sending
Molodowsky a poem for the upcoming issue of the journal, she makes it clear
that she would like to have a preprint before the poem goes to press: “Send me
the corrected copy…Do we have an agreement?” And yet as late as 1968, Korn
complained that in one of her poems the phrase “vayte dermonung” [distant remembrance]
had, by mistake, become “vayse dermonung” [white remembrance]. She
then complained: “I am fated never to creep out of the error-bog.”

III.
World Issues

A.
The Hippie Movement

The
late 1960s was the era of the hippies in the Western world. There is a
fascinating exchange on this issue in the correspondence.

In
a letter dated August 27, 1968, Korn tells Molodowsky: “If I were a bit
younger, I would belong to the “hippies.” They are the only ones who try in an
odd fashion to tear themselves away from the nails of civilization.” It would
seem that disdain for convention is why Korn was attracted to the hippie
movement. Two months later, (in a letter dated September 10, 1968), Molodowsky
reports to Korn that she had told Oyerbach what Korn had said about becoming a
hippie. His response to that was: “If she’ll become a hippie, so will I.” It is
not clear if there is an element of mockery in this reaction. It would seem
that Oyerbach found Korn’s declaration amusing and unrealistic.

Perhaps
because Molodowsky and her husband Simkhe lived in a city that had a larger,
more vociferous number of student protesters, both were more aware of the
anarchistic, self-destructive nature of the hippie “revolution.” Molodowsky
told Korn: “About this Simkhe categorically declared that under no
circumstances would he ever become a hippie.”

B.
The Prague Spring

1968
was also the year of the aborted Czech revolt against the communist regime.
Molodowsky and Korn watched and listened, and quite naturally, thought about
Israel. In a letter dated August 15, 1968, Korn wrote to Molodowsky: “If the
Czechs were to manage (even for the interim) to tear themselves out of Russia’s
paws, that would have a good effect on Israel’s stand.” At the time the Soviet
regime was supporting Israel’s Arab neighbors militarily and diplomatically.
Any setback for Soviet Russia, therefore, was seen as a positive development
for Israel.

Ultimately,
Soviet tanks rolled onto the streets of Prague and crushed the revolution.
Korn, who had hoped that the Soviets might back down, even temporarily, was
shocked at the world’s acceptance of Soviet power. In a letter to Molodowsky
she asked: “Where is decency, justice, humanity?” Oddly, Korn who had
personally watched Hitler conquer first Poland and then the rest of Europe was
still shocked at indifference to injustice. But the fact remains; the
experience of World War II did not inure her.

IV.
The Jewish World

A.
Israel and Hebrew Literature

Even
before the Six Days War in 1967, Korn and Molodowsky paid careful attention to
the news from Israel. In a letter dated December16, 1966, Korn told Molodowsky:
“It was with a pounding heart that I followed the news about Israel’s trouble.”
It is therefore surprising that although the two women wrote to each other in
1967, at the time of Israel’s war against its neighbors, no mention is made of
Israel’s danger or of its military victory in the letters that are preserved in
the archives. During this time, the two women wrote about health issues and
poetry, but not about Israel. It was not until 1968, in the wake of the
discussion of which territory, if any, should be ceded to Israel’s neighbors,
that the issue of Israel and its safety found its way into their
correspondence. In a letter dated March 4, 1968, Molodowsky told Korn: “The
issues of Israel do not leave my mind. We are faced once more with an exodus
from Egypt [in Yiddish: yetsias mitsrayim] – and all this in our generation.”

For
both women the question of Israel inevitably brought up the position of Yiddish
and Yiddish writers in Israel. Both women had wandered a good deal, Korn during
World War II, and Molodowsky before World War II. Yet, both felt alienated in
Israel; it was not the home they longed for. In a letter dated April 16, 1966,
Korn wrote: “While in Israel I heard that Chaim Grade was lying in the
hospital. [He’d had] a heart attack. Manger is once again seriously ill. Now
all becomes difficult and inhospitable [in Yiddish: umheymlekh].”

Molodowsky
understood that Korn was connecting her discomfort in Israel with the position
of Yiddish in Israel. In a letter written as a response two months later
(August 15, 1966), she commented: “This is not a simple matter. On top of our
packs of trouble falls the wall [or divide, in Yiddish mekhitse] that divides the
languages of Yiddish and Hebrew. One can’t reconcile this [conflict]. In short,
it’s a world containing smaller worlds. The larger world is not OK, and neither
are the smaller worlds…”

The
well being of Israel and of their friends in Israel continued to worry both
Korn and Molodowsky. In a letter dated march 5, 1969, Molodowsky told Korn: “Apart
from these small matters, I have great deal of aggravation over what is
happening in Israel. I know people there, I know how very many years they have
suffered, and now they are surrounded by danger.”

Just
because the two women were cognizant of the conflicts within and between the
Hebrew writers’ world and the Yiddish writers’ world, they were shocked (and
somewhat insulted) to find that the non-Jewish world recognized a
German-speaking poet as a representative of the vanished world of European
Jewry. When the Nobel Prize committee awarded its literature prize to Nelly
Saks, a Jewish writer, who wrote neither in Hebrew nor in Yiddish, but in
German, Molodowsky, in a letter dated September 25, 1966, wrote: “At a time
when the Hebrew and the Yiddish literatures were taken up with who would get
the first Nobel prize, just then they chose a German-writing poet as a
representative of the Jews. It looks to me as though an imp hid himself under
the laps of the male jurors and stuck out a red tongue [at the Jews facing
him].”

As
the years went by and the Hebrew-reading public in Israel grew, while the
Yiddish-reading public declined worldwide, both women realized that translation
from the Yiddish into Hebrew could do wonders for a writer’s reputation. In
this vein, Molodowsky told Korn, in the last of her letters in this collection
(dated August 16, 1969): “I am truly glad that Ravitch’s book has appeared in
Hebrew. That will pick up his spirits. I believe he has been down lately.”

B.
The Jewish Diaspora -­ Canada and the US

Both
Molodowsky and Korn were adult immigrants in their respective homes. They
learned to “fit in”, more or less, but they felt as outsiders. They needed an
audience for their work, and so perforce, they attended evening events and
luncheons, where their work was read and sometimes sold. However, privately
they confessed their true feelings.

In
a letter dated January 27, 1967, Korn told Molodowsky that she was invited to a
luncheon at which she was supposed to be the guest of honor. She was scheduled
to read from her book, but after the meal, she noted “some women were sitting
as though on pins, hurrying to get home to prepare supper for their husbands,
and others were so deeply in conversation that they had forgotten their
surroundings. So I forewent the reading…May the good deeds of former readers
remain with us.” Clearly, Korn was hurt.

And
yet, Korn continued to attend these affairs; there was simply no other way to
get publicity for her work. In a letter dated November 13 of the same year, she
told Molodowsky how she felt about the talk of “society ladies: “We are very
familiar with the speech of “society ladies.” Simply empty hackneyed talk, it
eats away at my heart. Now I have altogether no patience for their talk.”
Similarly, in a letter dated February 7, 1969, Molodowsky complained to Korn
that an evening supposedly devoted to a celebration of literature placed too
much emphasis on entertainment: “I don’t put too much stock in these events.
We’ve become a folk of events. The content of the issue becomes a side thing…and
they never address the main thing.”

The
younger generation of Canadian and American Jews rarely spoke Yiddish and were
only tangentially connected to what European Jews called “Yiddishkyat.” The two women writers
each on her own noted these changes and confessed their frustration to each
other. In a letter dated April 16, 1966, Korn told Molodowsky how she felt
about the younger generation’s abandonment of Yiddish: “We are cut off from the
younger generations. Children do not understand one Yiddish word. They will
speak Hebrew, French, English, just as long as it’s not Yiddish.”

Apart
from the language issue, the two women wondered just what constituted Jewish
roots for the younger generation. In 1968, the grandson of Molodowsky’s sister
celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. In a letter dated January 7 of that year she told
Korn: “I suppose there will be a big party as usual. So let us ask God to grant
the younger generation a bit of Yiddishkayt.” She then turned to
Korn and asked about her grandchildren: “And how are your two bar mitzvah boys
doing? Are they still learning a bit of the Yiddish sider?”[xi]

Everywhere
they looked these writers saw an attenuation of the rich cultural life they
remembered from Europe. In a letter dated August 16, 1969, Molodowsky offered
Korn her analysis of the situation: “Books are published with almost no
publishing houses, but that’s not the worst part. Much worse is the fact that
readers are passive, and in addition, the number of readers is very limited. In
short, it’s the hard times of a cultural decline. We need strength to overcome
it.”

As
they and other European-born people aged, the two women realized an era was
drawing to a close. In one of Korn’s last, undated, letters she tells
Molodowsky: “Our generation is collapsing and there is no one around to prop it
up like a shred of a wall.” In the following excerpt from a letter sent in
1965, Molodowsky noted that YIVO, the Yiddish research institute and the Bund
archives have not upheld academic standards: “Today I received two pieces of
communication, one from YIVO, which was half-Yiddish and half-English (and this
from a Yiddish research institute) [underlined in the original], and the
second from the Bund archive, where there was not one Yiddish letter (And this
from the Jewish workers’ party, one with a nationalist stance): “Idish”, that’s
how it looks.”[xii]

V.
Inner Feelings and Perceptions

A.
On Writing

Of
the two writers, Korn saw herself as the least disciplined. As early as 1955,
she wrote to Molodowsky: “It’s good that you can work and that Simkhe
understands you so well. I wish I could just sit down at my desk and not let my
days run off as they have done my whole life.” Korn always felt uncertain if
the unfinished work she had would ever form itself into something she could
feel proud of. It was, she felt, out of her control, as she told Molodowsky on
a letter dated December 12, 1960: “With poems it’s a matter of divine
intervention [In Yiddish: mit lider iz es shoyn a got zakh.] I have a few
unfinished poems. We will have to see what will become of them.” Korn
considered Molodowsky as a spur to her creativity. She herself, she said, was a
procrastinator. But Molodowsky could get her to write: “Ordinarily, it’s not in
my nature [to write]. Most probably it’s your magic that works from afar.”
(March 10, 1965)

Korn
often told Molodowsky that she had been spurred into creativity by Molodowsky’s
expectations of her. In the following passage, she once again complains that
she feels drained and incapable of writing, and at the same time admitting that
she has in fact written a poem at Molodowsky’s urging: “I have become drained
of everything, as though some one had drawn out all my strength. The only poem
that wandered somewhere off to the side of my bitter attitude I have only now
put to paper, and that is just because of you.”

Korn
also felt that her home was sometimes too crowded. When there were too many
guests or visitors, she could not write. In a letter dated August 12, 1962, she
tells Molodowsky that she has not been creative enough because “I could never
know from which corner a new face would show itself.” Despite the distractions,
Korn managed to publish a book in 1962. Molodowsky congratulated her and made
sure Korn knew that she realized how difficult it was to publish a book of
Yiddish poetry in that post WWII reality. In a letter dated March 14, 1962,
Molodowsky wrote: “To publish a book of poetry is, after all, like building the
Empire State building, considering the state of our publishing houses. So, Le-khayim [a toast] at least from
afar…”

Later
that year, in a letter dated December 12, Korn explained that in order to
write, a writer needs stimulation: “Poems need a bath to grow [in] and fresh
air to breathe in so they can nourish their roots.” She never specified what
the real-life equivalents of water, air, and nourishment are. She used a
similar analogy (one of nourishing water) in a letter dated April 25, 1966. She
made it clear that the reduced number of Yiddish writers definitely hampered
the overall productivity of the Yiddish writing community: “The larger the
river is, the purer the water. In a teeny stagnant puddle, all sorts of vermin
abound.”

Like
Korn, Molodowsky felt that poems were written out of a poet’s feeling of dire
necessity. In a letter dated November 27, 1967, she first asks Korn whether she
has written anything lately. She then treats her own question as a rhetorical
one: “Almost certainly you have written [something]. How can it be otherwise?
Because one writes a poem not for a “party”, but only when the heavens are
about to fall to the earth. Oy, how well I know that.” Molodowsky knew how to
encourage Korn. In a letter dated March 13, 1968, after she has been told by
Korn that only one new poem is ready to be sent off, she responds: “One poem is
also no small thing. Poems don’t walk in battalions; they are by their nature
only children.” In another letter, written approximately a month later (April
22, 1968) she again urges Korn to seize the opportunity to write: “The world,
after all, flies by. We need to grab it by its feathers.”

Molodowsky
never hesitates to give her opinion of Korn’s work, even of work that has
appeared elsewhere. Of Korn’s poems that she has read in other publications,
she says (in a letter dated July 17, 1968): “Such sad [poems]. It would seem
they are a result of your experience in the last few months. The poems are
good, but it is very hard to bear up under the burden they bring with them.”

In
Molodowsky’s opinion, many writers of her generation could not help but write
about the Holocaust [called der khurbn in their parlance]. In a letter she
wrote to Korn onAugust 24, 1968,
she said: “All that we write now has a Holocaust motif. It is expressed in
different ways, but it is the same melody.” In a letter that she sent to Korn
on October 21, 1968, Molodowsky tells Korn she has finally had a chance to
really read her new book. She then gives Korn her honest assessment: “It is the
Holocaust soul of our generation. Ours is a clipped past and a sunken present.”
Coincidentally, she mentions Korn’s 70th birthday, and she comments:
“That’s why I am glad that your book appeared now. Because this [the book] is
the important thing, and as for aging- well, I am willing to forego that…so let
us make a le-khayim [a toast] and hope all will go well.”

In
response to the letter mentioned above, (the one in which Molodowsky says she
sees Korn’s book as a reflection of their times), Korn responded (October 25,
1968): “It is good that you found in my poems a reflection of our condition.
When I write the poems, I don’t think about their effect. I write this way
because I can not do otherwise.” Interestingly, Molodowsky said something very
similar about her own writing in a letter written nearly a year later (March 5,
1969). But in Molodowsky’s case, the topic was letter writing, not poetry
writing. About her letters she says: “I very much wanted them to be happier,
but they do not obey me. As soon as I take pen to hand, and I want them to
dance, they begin to lament [in Yiddish zogneykho]. I can not control them.”

At
no time in this correspondence does Molodowsky discuss a specific line of Korn’s
poetry. While she mentions a review she wrote of one of Korn’s books, she does
not repeat her assessment of Korn’s poetry in general in these letters.
However, she does tell Korn about Ephraim Oyerbach’s impression of the poems.
The two women apparently held Oyerbach in great esteem. Accordingly, Molodowsky
wanted Korn to know how her poetry struck him. In a letter dated December 4,
1960, she tells Korn: “Ephraim Oyerbach read a few of your poems and he paused
at your very lyrical tone and your closeness to nature. He was very
enthusiastic about your poems.”

Molodowsky
must have told Korn why she liked her poems. Alternatively, she either wrote a
review or spoke somewhere in praise of Korn’s work. In response to this praise,
Korn wrote to Molodowsky in a letter dated December 17, 1967: “I am very proud of your good
opinion of my poetry. For me these are the best “hormones” and at the same time
the best consolation. When I feel struck down and depressed, good words from a
true poet and a good friend are the one salve for my wounded spirit.” In
attempting to comfort Korn, who had suffered personal setbacks as well as
family setbacks, Molodowsky said in a letter dated August 16, 1969: “A book is
a thing that lasts [Yiddish: dover shelkayome]. A good line lasts,
while the upheaval and the noise pass on.”

Just
as Molodowsky never hesitated to tell Korn what she thought, so Korn did not
hesitate to tell Molodowsky what she found most impressive in Molodowsky’s
oeuvre. During the time they corresponded Molodowsky was the editor of Svive. Molodowsky was busy
writing her serialized memoir, one that she called “Fun Mayn Elterzeyde’s
Yerushe”
(From My Great-Grandfather’s Inheritance). Korn truly enjoyed reading this
memoir and told Molodowsky why she liked it. In a letter dated April 20, 1965,
she notes: “Your story about your great-grandfather’s inheritance is exquisite.
I truly enjoyed reading it and at the same time, I was upset that it ended so
soon. I could have read on and on.”

A
few months later, in a letter dated July 20, 1965, Korn continued her praise of
the memoir: “Your story about the great-grandfather’s inheritance has in it the
lightness and warmth of a wonder-tale. All the aunts and uncles have become
familiar to my eyes because they are described with such a highly artistic pen
that they seem to have been caught in flagrante with their destiny.”
Molodowsky viewed her memoir as a form of private consolation (February 19,
1968): “When things go hard with me and thousands of teeny things disturb
me– then I resume writing a chapter of “My Great-grandfather’s
Inheritance.” I run away for a short time to a greener world, when the
surroundings were purer… and I was younger. But about youth and old age we must
not speak because it just won’t do.”

Like
Korn, many Hebrew translators agree that Molodowsky’s children’s poetry are the
finest that Yiddish literature has produced. Korn states (December 5, 1967): “I
hold that this [Molodowsky’s] book [of children’s poems] is a great feat. Your
children’s poems are the most beautiful, the best in our literature.”

B. Personal Revelations

Apparently,
Korn was not loath to speak about herself and her feelings. She spoke of her
inability to motivate herself to write, as well as of her dreams and fears. In
a letter dated May 31, 1966, she elaborated on a dream that she had. Both Kadya
and Simkhe appear in this dream and the plot of the dream is truly convoluted.
Korn conveyed the plot as she remembered it and then said: “You see, I am with
you even in my dreams.” Korn could make no sense of this dream. But
approximately a month later, in a letter dated June 24, 1966, she comments: “All
we are missing is [the Biblical character] Yoysef. He would have been able to
make good sense of the dream.”

Korn
is quite revealing about her own quirks. In a letter dated May 22, 1968, she
confesses to an obsession with cleanliness. She tells Kadya and Simkhe about
her experiences with cleaning her childhood home: “My greatest dream as a child
was to be allowed to clean the floors. But they didn’t let me do it.” She
confesses that when no one was home, she would lock herself into the bathroom,
and she would wash the floorboards, “till they were as yellow as saffron.” Only
then was she at peace. She admits that her obsession with cleanliness has
interrupted her creativity. When she sits down to write, if her desk were even
a bit untidy, she would neglect her writing and go into a frenzy of cleaning.

In
this correspondence, Korn combines an analysis of her own character traits with
an analysis of the behavior of her friend, Kadya. Yet, Molodowsky never
responded to this analysis (at least not in the collection in this archive).

In
a letter dated June 15, 1969, Korn tries to figure out why Molodowsky has not
come to visit her in Montreal, despite her many sincere invitations. Korn’s
scrutiny is a combination of a personal confession and resentment. She starts
off admitting her fear of being on the road and then she gets personal: “Since
my childhood, the whistle of a locomotive electrified me. I bound up all
possibilities and impossibilities with this whistle. And even when I was here,
after so much involuntary wandering about, I had no problem whatsoever with
hopping over to Chicago, Detroit or New York. The older I got, though, the more
upset I got with injustice. It may be [the same with you]… In order to cover
your fear of allowing yourself out “into the wide world” beyond your own four
walls, which are a fortress, you surround yourselves with a variety of excuses.”
There is no evidence of how this resonated with Molodowsky. She never reacted.

Molodowsky
never spoke about Simkhe and their relationship. There is no way of knowing
from these letters what their relationship was like. One thing seems feasible.
Simkhe had a way of making other women feel liked. Or at least, that is how
Korn felt. In a letter dated August 4, 1955, Korn writes: “Give Simkhe a kiss
from me…At least once I want to feel like a Czarina [Yiddish: vi a keysarine]. Till now no one made
me feel this way.” And then later she says: “If Simkhe can take his vacation
[when Kadya does], that will be truly wonderful.”

Although
Molodowsky was not conventionally beautiful, she was most definitely charming.
In an essay on Molodowsky (see section II B.), Ravitch says: “While still in
Warsaw, and then later in New York, I saw healthy young men run over to Kadya,
as though they were [her] sons.”[xiii] Self-aware as she was,
Molodowsky felt that she was not considered good looking. But, she felt she
could charm people.[xiv] Korn mentions this
charm in a letter dated March 24, 1969: “I am willing to bet with anyone… that
you, yes, I mean you, would be able to handle a kingdom no worse than King
Solomon, and also with a harem of 1,000 men.” But then, Korn adds: “But you
would make do with your Simkhe.”

In
quite a few instances, Molodowsky admits to an overwhelming sadness. But rarely
does she get specific. In a letter dated April 22, 1968, Molodowsky writes: “I
am trying as best I can not to fall into despair. There’s a golden loneliness
in our circle­ and I feel it in my
bones. I don’t know exactly why such sadness has befallen me, but I’ve become
tired from it.”

Just
as Korn was able to tease Molodowsky about her capacity to manage a harem of 1,000
men, so Molodowsky was able to tease Korn about alleged love affairs when Korn
was in her late middle age. In a letter written December 14, 1969, Molodowsky
points out that it has been a while since Korn has written. She (Molodowsky)
has no idea exactly where Korn is, since it is December. Has Korn gone to
Miami? Molodowsky wonders. And then she teases: “And perhaps you have begun a
love affair with someone and you’ve forgotten the [rest of the] world?”

Without
doubt, not all of Molodowsky’s letters to Korn have been preserved here. For
example, there is no letter here in which Molodowsky offers Korn money to help
pay for hospital bills. But in an undated letter from Korn to Molodowsky, the
former remarks: “It is fine and kind of you to ask me about the “green bits of
paper” that one must have at such times. My daughter is covering all of the
expenses.”

The
initial investigation of this correspondence expected to find letters from
Korn’s stay in the Stockholm D.P. camp through the early 1950s. But this
endeavor was unsuccessful. Perhaps the investigation at the Montreal archive
would shed some light of that period.

The
Molodowsky-Korn Correspondence at the Montreal Archive

The
Korn archive at the Montreal Jewish library contains twenty-two letters from
Kadya Molodowsky, written 1947–1972. This ostensibly twenty-five year
span is less than it might seem. The collection is unevenly weighted in favor
of the earlier years. 16 out of 22 were written in the 5-year span
1947–1952. While this presents a problem in following what the two said
to each other in their later years, it definitely fills in the gap found at the
YIVO archive. The YIVO archive preserved no letters at all from those years.
However, here there is a chance to find out what Molodowsky chose not to
preserve. Comparing the holdings in each archive further demonstrates these
poets’ different personalities and priorities.

An
Overview

Some
of the topics covered in these letters are variations on themes found in the
correspondence at the YIVO archive. Some of the material here corroborates the
findings from the YIVO archive. The YIVO archive does not hold any
correspondence sent by Molodowsky to Korn from Israel. The Montreal archive,
where Korn’s letters are housed, contains one letter from Molodowsky, written
in 1949, when the latter was a tourist in Israel staying at Giv’at Brenner, and
three letters written between 1950 and 1952, when Molodowsky and her husband
were living in Tel Aviv. In between the two periods, Molodowsky lived in New
York. She reflected on her stay in Israel and discussed her plans for a return
trip. These shed some light on Molodowsky’s feelings and opinions about the
newly founded state. They do not, however, solve the mystery of why she
suddenly left Israel and returned to New York.

I.
Variations on Previous Themes

A.
Concern for Israel

Whatever
Molodowsky may have felt about her personal suitability for life in Israel, she
never lost her concern for the welfare of Israel and her friends there. In a
letter dated December 8, 1966, she tells Korn: “And in addition, the news from
Israel. Every day when I open the newspaper, my eyes cloud over, and my heart
lurches. [These are] hard times.”

B.
Genuine Friendship

The
friendship between these two women was multi-faceted. They had mutual
professional admiration; they valued each other’s work. But beyond this, there
was a human bond, a true friendship. In the YIVO archive letters, Korn shows
admiration not only for Molodowsky’s writing, but also for her energy and
editorial judgment. In the Montreal collection, Molodowsky shows her admiration
for Korn’s work and her delight that Korn is getting the recognition she
deserves. In a letter written on October 27, 1948, after Molodowsky attended an
evening event that honored Korn and her work, she wrote: “It was a wonderful
evening, truly something unusual, and it will long remain in our memory, It was
one of those rare moments when writers like each other, that is they love
writers other than themselves, and a kind of light hung over that entire
gathering. You earned this, Rokhl, and you deserved it.”

But
Molodowsky’s feelings for Korn went beyond admiration for Korn’s craft. On
August 1st, 1948, approximately three months before the aforementioned evening
in Korn’s honor, she received in the mail photographs of Korn and their mutual
friend, Ida Maze. Molodowsky responded: “I was very happy to receive the
photographs of you and Ida. The two of you are like beautiful shining stars,
and you both look good to me, and naturally, to Simkhe.”

There
is no doubt that Molodowsky and Korn enjoyed each other’s company. In a letter
written on December 21, 1949, Molodowsky explains that she was unable to visit
Korn because she was not feeling well: “But since the world is not all that
big, we will, please God, yet see each other - there or here, and we will yet
whoop it up [mir veln nokh hulyen].”

In
a letter dated September 3, 1948, Molodowsky tells Korn that she received
regards from a galitsyaner [a person who does not speak Yiddish] “in our
camp.” What this common “camp” refers to remains unclear.

C.
Contempt for Philistinism

Both
Molodowsky and Korn were writers for whom words and the craft of writing were
of paramount concern. But harsh reality forced them to market and sell their
work. In the YIVO letters, Korn is hurt when, at a luncheon for society women,
she was forced to forego her talk so that the women could continue to gossip
and chatter. Molodowsky voiced a similar concern: “Boaz says that folks will
not come unless there is coffee. If poems must depend on a cup [sic] of coffee,
then perhaps it would be worthwhile to spill out the coffee just once to see if
the poems can manage on their own…All other matters that are of paramount
importance in the world are totally insignificant when the urgent question
arises: ‘with coffee or without coffee’”.

II.
Suppositions Corroborated

A.
Simkhe Lev – The Enabler

In
the YIVO correspondence, it is suggested that Simkhe Lev, Molodowsky’s husband,
helped publish (most) of her work. In a letter dated December 8, 1966,
Molodowsky writes: “Tomorrow we will go to type-set [the next issue of] Svive.” While it is true that
she does not specifically say “Simkhe and I,” nevertheless, the collective “we”
means Kadya Molodowsky and Simkhe Lev. In this same letter, Molodowsky
explicitly bemoans the sad plight of Yiddish publishing: “If our publishing
events were to flower like our banquet events, perhaps we would not need
banquets.” It would be wrong to suppose that the state of Yiddish publishing
had been better before the 1960s and had simply deteriorated over time. A
letter written by Molodowsky seventeen years before the aforementioned letter
proves this is not the case.

In
a letter dated January 3, 1949, Molodowsky told Korn that she had just finished
writing a serialized novel in the [NYC] newspaper Morgn Jurnal. She said that she
would gather the chapters and look for a publisher. She told Korn she was not
at all certain she would find a publisher. She might, she told Korn, be forced
to use the printing press: “Paper Bridges.” The fact that she names the
publishing company is given in quotation marks as a hint to the fact that it
was self-published by her own husband. Simkhe Lev was a typesetter, not a
publisher. Apparently, the printing machines where he worked were made
available to him, perhaps after-hours. He set the type for and printed (some
of) Molodowsky’s books. These then appeared under the name of the “Paper
Bridges Publishing Company” (In Yiddish “Papirene Brik Farlag”).

It
is no accident that Molodowsky and her husband chose this name for “their”
publishing company. Three of Molodowsky’s poems, published over three decades,
involved the theme of the “paper bridge,” and had the words “paper bridge” in
their title. The first of these, written in the 1930s,[xv] entitled “My Paper
Bridge,”[xvi] speaks of the bridge
Molodowsky built when “the sun was a golden wheel”[xvii] and she dreamed of a
husband and child. Even then, things had not worked out as planned. In Poland
during the 1930s, Molodowsky suffered severe poverty. Like the old woman she
meets on the bridge, she feels she has “nowhere to go.”[xviii] More than a decade
later, Molodowsky wrote a poem entitled “A Poem to the Paper Bridge.”[xix] By this time, war was
raging, and the Jews of Europe were being systematically murdered. In this
poem, Molodowsky rhymes “Sedom,” the Biblical city of inhumanity, with “tehom,” abyss, and begs the
paper bridge to lead her to a place where “no person is tortured, no child
shamed.”[xx]

The
Paper Bridges publishing company published this last poem, which appeared in
the collection entitled “Der Meylekh Dovid Aleyn iz Geblibn,” Only King David
Remained. The colophon of that book, Katherine Hellerstein notes “acknowledges
Simkhe Lev, Molodowsky’s husband, as the typesetter and arranger of the print
columns.”[xxi]

In
1949, when Molodowsky wrote the letter to Korn, she had already written two (of
the eventual three) poems featuring “Paper Bridge” in their titles, and
published by the “Paper Bridge Publishing Company.” Obviously, Korn knew what
Molodowsky was referring to when she suggested that she might once again resort
to publishing with the “Paper Bridge Publishing Company.”

Approximately
two decades later,[xxii] in a poem entitled “On
the Paper Bridge,”[xxiii] Molodowsky speaks of
walking on the paper bridge, and in the end, being sent off to weep with the
Matriarch Rachel.[xxiv] This Matriarch,
according to the Midrash, is said to cry for her children from her grave near
Bethlehem, determined to comfort them on their way back to their homeland.[xxv]

Hellerstein
points out that a legend in Jewish folklore describes the coming of the Messiah
as “cross[ing] into Paradise over a paper bridge.”[xxvi] The bridge to paradise
does indeed seem to be what Molodowsky was dreaming about when she first used
this metaphor. But by the time she used this metaphor for the third time, in
the 1960s, it had taken on another meaning. Molodowsky and her generation, who
had known the Jewish world in Europe before it was shattered, considered
themselves as a bridge to the post-Holocaust world. As writers, they made their
bridges of paper, but they were aware that like bridges made of paper, these
bridges could not sustain much weight. They kept writing, realizing their
writings might not reach the next generation.

The
concept of the paper bridge illustrates the full arc of Molodowsky’s life, from
her youth, when she dreamt of personal happiness and motherhood, to her
middle-aged years, when she identified with Rachel, the Matriarch, comforting
the Children of Israel. The name she chose for “her” printing press was a
symbol of her personal aspirations as well as her aspiration as a poet.[xxvii] And she could not have
written and published without the help of Simkhe Lev.

B.
Personality Differences

In the YIVO
correspondence, Korn is confessing, somewhat apologetically, that she derived a
sense of satisfaction from house cleaning. The sight of a sparkling clean
surface, she said, made her feel wonderful, especially if she had worked on it
and watched it change colors under her very eyes. In this correspondence,
Molodowsky is examining the subject. For her, house cleaning was sheer
drudgery; it had no redeeming features. In the following passage, written on
November 20, 1950, she advises Korn to escape housework: “That you must tear
yourself away from housework and from dragging yourself around doing housework
is so without a doubt. Run away from it. It makes the cleaning rag dirty and
the soul sad. In my opinion, if all the mayors of every city would invite all
women to their offices at least four times a week, life would be much easier.”

C.
Hints of Marital Tension

From
the circumspect letters written to Korn, it is difficult to assess the marital
relationship between Molodowsky and her husband. Nevertheless, hints of marital
tension are quite visible. In the YIVO correspondence, Korn admits that only in
Simkhe’s presence did she “feel like a Czarina.” Therefore, it is reasonable to
conclude that Simkhe knew how to make women feel good. In a letter dated July
11, 1948, written from Rockaway Park, known as a summer resort, Molodowsky
tells Korn that she is on a vacation: “That I had to observe, as though it were
a summer-time commandment” [mitsve]. The word “mitsve” has a connotation for
something that is forced on an individual from above. Although she does not say
so outright in the passage quoted above, Molodowsky makes it quite clear that
she traveled to Rockaway Park because her husband has commanded/demanded it.
Molodowsky does not hesitate to tell Korn that she cannot wait to leave: “We
traveled here for a week’s stay at the seashore; Tuesday we return to New York.
Thank God.”

It
is important to note where Molodowsky has put the period in the above passage.
The two words “Thank God” occupy an entire sentence. Clearly, she was relieved
that the end of this weeklong stay was in sight. And she expressed her distaste
quite plainly: “I have always detested “summer cabins” [“dachas” in the original], and
I don’t know why people thought up such things, because in truth reality is the
same everywhere. Oh well, as long as we left the busy city [in the original: abi
arop fun mark].”

This
letter, which begins with Molodowsky’s outright admission that she is not where
she wants to be, ends rather strangely. The last thing she writes to Korn is
about a man named “Segal”. She tells Korn: “If he declares his love, do not
become alarmed, for he will retract it without having been asked. Send him my
warm greetings.”

Immediately
underneath these lines, on the very same page, and only fractions of a
millimeter below, Simkhe writes a few polite lines to Korn. Obviously,
Molodowsky handed the page to her husband and asked him to ‘add a few lines.’
It was impossible for Simkhe not to see what his wife had just written. Yet,
despite her unhappiness at Rockaway Park, she still flirted.

III.
Molodowsky’s Letters from and About Israel

Very
little is known about Molodowsky’s reasons for leaving Israel. Four letters
preserved in the Montreal archive could shed some light on this issue.

Letter
No. 1 from Israel, May 19, 1949

In
this letter, written from the guesthouse of kibbutz Giv’at Brenner, Molodowsky
is elated. She tells Korn that being in Israel is like having a dream come
true: “…as though in a dream, in truth “we are as dreaming [“hoyinu
ke-kholmim”,
a quote from Psalms].” This sense of wonder is the result of participating in
the excitement of the establishment of the state of Israel immediately after
the Holocaust: “They want to rebuild the Jewish people! No small thing!”

From
this moment on, Molodowsky urges Korn to immigrate to Israel. Molodowsky was
well aware that Korn’s life centered on her daughter and her daughter’s family
in Montreal. And yet, she was convinced that moving to Israel could be
beneficial for Korn: “It occurred to me that in the land of Israel you would
find a bit of genuine comfort, maybe even a healing of the bruising you suffered,
if it possible to heal from such a thing in one generation.”

In
this letter, Molodowsky also talks about the relationships between Yiddish
writers in Israel and Yiddish writers in the Diaspora. It appears that there
were Yiddish writers who assumed that anyone who went to Israel and considered
staying there was antagonistic to Yiddish. Memories of the language wars in
Israel were still fresh, even though by this time the pro-Yiddish group
dwindled in number and lost the battle to Modern Hebrew. Nevertheless, it is
apparent from the letter that for some writers the choice was either Yiddish in
the Diaspora or Hebrew in Israel. But this sort of dichotomy was foreign to
Molodowsky. While in Europe, she taught in a Yiddish-language school by day and
a Hebrew-language school by night. For her, there was no contradiction in being
a Yiddish writer in Israel. She explains herself to Korn: “In New York… they’ve
already accused me of having sold out Yiddish here. Where they get that, I
don’t know, but there they like a bit of Culture-Congress, as long as they make
noise.”

In
the next paragraph, Molodowsky counters the prejudices of the anti-Israel
Yiddishists living in the Diaspora. One can find Yiddish creativity in Israel,
she insists: “There are indeed publishing companies and there are indeed
readers. [Yiddish] books on all sorts of subjects are published and read.
Yiddish is beloved, even though the country is grounded in Hebrew.” Before she
speaks sorrowfully of the price in human life that the war of independence has
exacted, Molodowsky once again finds herself carried away in a near-mystical
statement: “And sometimes things seem nearly mystical. It’s as though angels
took charge and enacted the prophecies of bygone days.”

The
YIVO archive does not have any holdings from Molodowsky’s euphoric period in
Israel. Molodowsky was clearly not interested in preserving it. This is not
surprising. Such euphoria could not be sustained for long. Over time, the harsh
realities of life in Israel had to make their mark. The older Molodowsky might
not have wanted to preserve evidence of this euphoria, but Korn evidently felt
it was of historical importance.

In
the Montreal archive, four letters that Molodowsky sent to Korn from her home
in New York between her 1949 trip to Israel and her 1950-1952 stay in Israel
exist.

Interim
letter No. 1

On
July 24, two months later when she returned to New York, she wrote: “Being in
the land of Israel was a great experience for me. There they are building a
land and a life.” She goes on to suggest that in Israel there is an audience
for Yiddish poetry. She may be saying this to counter the naysayers she alluded
to in her letter in May of that year. There is a suggestion in her comments
that in Israel the audience for Yiddish poetry is larger than in the Diaspora: “You
will probably not believe me. There a good poem is still an important thing.
One reads it and loves it.” It is difficult to decipher this contention. In
fact, during the post-war era, Yiddish poetry was widely written and published
in both the Diaspora and Israel. Molodowsky might be referring to the
contemporary cultural differences between writing Yiddish literature in the
Diaspora as opposed to writing Yiddish literature in Israel: “But it is not
this [the audience for Yiddish poetry] that is crucial. What is crucial is that
in Israel there is an open door for Jews. One does not have to ask any one for
favors, one just comes home.”

At
a distance of two months, Molodowsky was able to bring herself to speak (albeit
somewhat lightly) of the physical difficulties of life in Israel: “Life [in
Israel] is hard. I lost another seven pounds of my meager weight, but I feel
stronger in spirit.”

Interim
Letter No. 2

In
a letter dated September 24, 1949, Molodowsky reassessed her stay in Israel: “We’re
sad in New York after our stay in the land of Israel, where life is so intense.
Here everything is on paper­; there is no genuine
Jewish life…As you, of course, know, youth [here] have long ago forgotten who
the Patriarch Abraham was, and one doesn’t bother one’s self [men badert
zikhnisht] with this.”

Molodowsky
chose the New World neologism “badern” deliberately. For Molodowsky, the Biblical
Patriarch Abraham is a living Jewish model, as he certainly was for Israeli
youth who were able to read the Bible in its original Hebrew. But to Diaspora
Jewish youth, cut off from the language of the Bible, the figure of Abraham
meant nothing. For Molodowsky and for Korn, this was a cause for worry.

Interim
Letter No. 3

The
third letter Molodowsky wrote to Korn after her trip to Israel was dated
December 3, 1949. In this letter, after she compliments Korn on the publication
of (Korn’s new book) Bashertkayt, destiny, she speaks of her upcoming trip to
Israel: “Now I am preparing for the long trip to the Land of Israel. I travel
there with a peculiar kind of happiness - to the land of miracle and destiny,
as you say. Now I have to recite some Psalms so that my strength should last…”

Interestingly,
this letter ends with a newly coined word: “Write me a little letter [a
mikhtavl],
as we say in Tel Aviv [vi men zogt bay unts in tel aviv].” The word “mikhtavl,” is a blend of a Hebrew
noun, mikhtav,
and [l] the Yiddish diminutive suffix.

Interim
Letter No. 4

The
fourth letter Molodowsky wrote from New York before she returned to Israel is
dated December 21, 1949. Quite surprisingly, Molodowsky sounds as though she
plans to stay in New York for the near future. She tells Korn that their mutual
friend Ida Maze visited her in New York and the two had a wonderful time. She
then apologizes for not being able to visit Korn in Montreal. She was too weak
to take the trip: “But since the world is not so very big, we will, if God
wills it, yet see each other there or here.”

Letter
No. 2 from Israel, May 30, 1950 (the first letter from the 1950-52 period)

In
this letter, Molodowsky tells Korn that Oyerbach had showed her a letter from
Korn in which there was a discussion about Korn moving to Israel. Accordingly,
Korn wanted to make the move, but her children were opposed to it: “I
understand that this is no easy decision for you. Coming to [live in] Israel is
always a good thing, and for my part, I’d be delighted if you were to come,
that I don’t have to tell you. About settling down, we have to think things
over. I believe you will find the opportunity [Here in square brackets
Molodowsky had written “to get”, but then didn’t continue with that thought.]
to do something among Jews. And so, let me hear from you.”

This
letter was written on the stationary of Moetset Ha-Po’a lot, the Women’s Labor
organization that Molodowsky joined. At the time Molodowsky was the editor of
the Yiddish language journal Heym, Home, published by this organization.
Molodowsky made sure to congratulate Korn on the prize that she won for her
book. It would seem that Korn complained about something in Montreal (the issue
is not exactly clear from Molodowsky’s response). But Molodowsky assures Korn
that Montreal is truly a beautiful city: “Look only at the beauty [in your
surroundings]. Believe me, it helps.”

When
Molodowsky was the editor of Svive, she always made sure to ask Korn to contribute
material for “her” journal. In keeping with this tradition, she again asks Korn
to submit to Heym.

In
this letter, Molodowsky tells Korn she is busy correcting the typos that she
has found in the pre-edited version of the latest issue of Heym. She encourages Korn to
submit to Heym and
jokes that an honorarium is waiting for Korn should she decide to come to
Israel.

Molodowsky
then tells Korn she has completed a book of poems while she has been in Israel
and the book will be published in New York. The tentative title of this book,
she says, is “Angels Come to Jerusalem.” It would appear that this book later
appeared as “Lider fun Mayn Gebeyn,” Poems of my Bones. Despite this new creative
spur, Molodowsky complained of a new weariness: “I do not feel an ease of heart
because I would like to have free time and I have none! None, and none of the
bit of spirit of a free bird. It’s such an important thing; I believe you would
support me on that.”

It
would seem that in Israel Molodowsky supported herself financially. (The YIVO
archive has copies of the receipts/payments she accrued while she was in
Israel.) In addition to editing the journal Heym, she traveled around
the country, visiting and encouraging working women. This apparently exhausted
her. If in fact Simkhe did not work in Israel, and it was Molodowsky who had to
support them both, that might explain Molodowsky’s exhaustion and the return of
the couple to New York where they could live on his earnings.

Molodowsky’s
next letter was written in 1962 after a ten-year hiatus, for which this study
found no reasonable explanation.

Conclusions

It
appears that the friendship between Molodowsky and Korn was sincere and
genuine. On many occasions, Molodowsky shows compassion for Korn and takes
extreme measures to help her and offer to go to HIAS in person.
This is evident in the letter she wrote to Korn while the latter was still in
the Displaced Persons Camp in Stockholm.

The
YIVO archive contains evidence of a verbal “tiff” that the two friends had, one
almost certainly rooted in the fact that for many of the post-war years,
Molodowsky was an editor, while Korn was a “mere” contributor to Svive, the major literary
journal of the period. The fact that Molodowsky preserved three different
drafts of the letter she wrote to Korn attempting to assuage the latter’s fury
over a misplaced numeral demonstrates that Molodowsky wanted posterity to
appreciate their friendship. On the other hand, Korn’s attempt to expunge all
records of this “tiff” from her own archive shows that the memory of this event
discomfited her.

The
most conspicuous omission in the YIVO archives are the letters Molodowsky sent
to Korn during her first trip to Israel, the letters about Israel after this
trip, and the letters sent to Korn from her Tel Aviv apartment between the
years 1950–1952. The letters that Korn preserved show the transformation
of Molodowsky from an enthusiastic Zionist to an exhausted, probably overworked
woman who had “no ease of heart.”

The
first clue to Molodowsky’s disenchantment with Israel is most probably the “unnatural”
enthusiasm that Molodowsky showed upon her arrival. That degree of enthusiasm
simply could not be sustained over time. A second clue emerges from a letter
sent to Korn in the interim period between 1949 and 1950. In this interim
period, Molodowsky shows some ambivalence about staying in Israel permanently.
She speaks of regular visits she would make to Montreal and visits Korn would
make to New York in the coming years, neglecting to mention her earlier desire
to immigrate to Israel for good. The third clue is derived from Molodowsky’s
admission to Korn in 1952 that she has “no ease of heart.” Whether the cause of
this malaise was emotional or physical (or perhaps both) is difficult to
verify.

Korn
obviously felt that Molodowsky’s initial enthusiasm merited reservation. For
her, and perhaps for the readers who observe the waning of Molodowsky’s
excitement, even a withered passion is a thing worth remembering.

[iii] It is my impression that Simkhe,
Molodowsky’s husband, supplied the press. He himself was a typesetter and so
knew the technical end of the business. In this way, he functioned much as
Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf’s husband. In an era that pre-dated desktop
publishing, the availability of a printing press was no small thing.

[iv] This is a quote from and a reference to
the famous song that Jews sang right before the Holocaust.

[v] In Yiddish:”s’zol zayn mit mazel un
brokho.” Korn’s use of
the phrase used for a business venture is very much in place. This was a
serious financial undertaking.

[vi] The first Yiddish treatment of tkhines as a particularly women’s brand of
literature was that of Sh. Niger in his “Di Yidishe literatur un di lezerin”, first published in Vilna, 1913, and
then re-issued in 1959. Kathryn Hellerstein discusses Niger’s treatment of tkhines in her article “A Question of Tradition”:
Women Poets in Yiddish”, in Handbook of American Jewish Literature, pp.
216-219. In Paper Bridges, the dual-language, Yiddish-English book of
Molodowsky’s poems translated by Hellerstein, one can find Molodowsky’s pseudo-tkhine “Eyl khanun”, Merciful God, on pages
352-355. Hellerstein discusses this poem on p.43 of her introduction, and
points out that David Roskies, in his book Against the Apocalypse,
called this poem a “sacred parody” of a prayer. See D. Roskies, p. 30. In Gender
and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature, Hellerstein claims that
this access to tkhines
spared women “the great leap from sacred to secular language” that contemporary
men went through, as well as the transition from “the congregational text to
that of an individual”. See K. Hellerstein there, p. 115.

[x] This group (whose name is an acronym
based on the Biblcal verse: “Beyt
Ya’akov Le-khu Ve-nelkha”) is the “Lovers of Zion” to
which Molodowsky referred in her first letter to Korn.

[xi] It is interesting to speculate just what
Molodowsky was referring to. From other references in her letters, it is clear
that she did not think that Orthodox Judaism was a tenable position for most
modern Jews. Especially noteworthy is the fact that Korn never openly answers
this question, at least not in the letters of this collection.

[xii] For a discussion of “Yiddish” versus “Idish”
and the ideological battles which surrounded these names, see Dovid Katz’s
article in the Algemeiner Jurnal:
http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=987

[xiv] For a discussion of this self-awareness
of Molodowsky, see the paper written by Noga Rubin and the present author “Bayit
Bi-rekhov Grend,” A
House on Grand Street, in Bamot U-Masakh, no. 5, 2010, p. 23.

[xv]. The collection of poems in which this
poem appeared, was entitled “Dzshike Gas,”
(Dzshike Street). It was published in 1933, and then again in 1936.

[xvi]. This poem can be found in Katherine
Hellerstein’s book. The Yiddish is on p.236; Hellerstein’s English translation
is on p.237.

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